Space Warfare
Overview Space warfare is the art of seizing control over interplanetary space. Weapon Systems Energy Weapons Directed energy weapons have the advantage that their "projectiles" are moving at light or near-light speeds. Thus, they are very hard to evade in sub-lightsec ranges and impossible to intercept. Their main disadvantage is their lower damage/weight ratio and high power consumption. Laser Weapons Various devices emitting electromagnetic radiation of different wavelengths - photons (conventional lasers/photon lasers), x-rays (röntgen lasers) or gamma rays (gamma lasers). Most laser weapons can fire either in stronger, "single shot" pulses or weaker continuous sweeps for greater hit probability. Versatile, accurate and relatively energy-efficient, lasers are the most widespread type of energy weapons. Ion Weapons Ion weapons fire streams of charged particles at the target. They have a much larger damage than laser weapons (since ions, unlike photons, have a rest mass and thus, kinetic energy), but they also have a shorter range (since ions, unlike photons, repel each other, dissipating the beam). Also, they are useless in atmospheric combat, have a much larger power consumption than lasers, and can fire only in microsecond pulses. Thus, they are mostly used against heavily armored targets, like capital ships and battlestations. Nuclear Lasers Nuclear Lasers are enormous laser weapons fueled by shaped nuclear charges - essentially, they emit the power of a nuclear explosion concentrated into a single beam. They are the standard weapons of battleships and battlestations, used against capital ships and for orbital bombardment. Ship Classes Frigates The first ships designed for space warfare were frigates, relatively small (100-500 tons) atmospheric gunboats equipped with 10-meps engines, light armor and weaponry. Battleships The main weakness of frigates was their inability to deal with heavily armored planetary and stationary defenses due to their lack of adequate firepower. In the early era of space warfare kinetic bombardment was used against these kind of targets, but the mass destruction and collateral damage caused by it soon made this method largery neglicted. Instead, a new ship class emerged: the battleship, a heavy (10.000-15.000 tons) spacecraft capable of surgical strikes with heavy-duty energy weapons. Destroyers The battleship, however, was very vulnerable against frigates equipped with kinetic weapons attacking from close range due to it's inability to dodge the strikes and it's lack of adequate number of point defense weapons. A new class of escort ships were designed to protect them: 1000-ton destroyers, relatively mobile dedicated point-defense weapon platforms. For many decades, the triad of frigates, destroyers and battleships dominated space warfare. There were a few successful attempts, however, to introduce other ship types: these were the corvette, the cruiser and the titan. Corvettes Frigates often tried to capitalize upon their lower heat and radar profiles, hibernating themselves and drifting as close to the enemy as possible without being noticed. Corvettes were smaller (50-100 ton) frigates designed specifically for this kind of stealth warfare: covered with radar ablative armor and equipped with thermal batteries absorbing the heat signature of the ship, hibernated corvettes were virtually undetectable from more than a few thousand kilometers.